


glass heart hymn

by liberate



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternative Timeline, Angst, Depression, M/M, but i am a monster, hanzo is a troubled kid, he deserves better, more of a character study, slow healing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:25:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liberate/pseuds/liberate
Summary: maybe the dragons cracked you up a little too much when they crept into your soul, without closing all the cuts completely, and that's how the darkness and emptiness ended up inside of you.maybe they got lost, just like you did.the timeline where hanzo is the one who falls to genji's hand.





	glass heart hymn

i.

 

 

 

The cicadas cry out for one last time before the sound dies away. Heat shimmers across the garden, but even that will vanish eventually, because the night is approaching, killing away the summer heat. You've been on your back for a while, eyes closed, the pleasant warmth of the front porch wood against your bare skin, with only the cicadas and the night sky keeping you company. 

 

For the first time in hours, you feel pleasantly relaxed, because you can finally distance yourself from the memories, the problems, from your fathers disapproving face, arrows tumbling towards the ground in a slow motion, never hitting their mark. It's another evening as many others, the moon full and clear above the temple, the soft rushing of the water soothes your nerves. 

 

It makes it easy to pretend that your life isn't about to fall to pieces.

 

Hanzo, your mother tells you, pulling your yukata in place, blue and golden, the family mon embroidered on top of your heart, where it is supposed to be, and yet you don't feel, yet you never felt this distanced from your family before. From next door, you can hear Genji talking to your father, words of iron sugar-coated as the sweet scent of flowers, an illusion that everyone and each of you is able to see through. You must never disappoint your father. Her hands rest on your chest, and there is so much bitterness within her eyes that it makes you want to scream, because you are not Genji and you never disappointed anyone.

 

And yet everyone looks at you like you will, like you are the ticking time bomb, but many they just look at you and Genji with the same eyes, brothers in blood, brothers in destiny, brothers in tragedy. You've been trying to prove them wrong for the entirety of your life, by putting on your best smile, your best improvisation of the prodigy you are supposed to be. 

 

But then Genji walks into the room and bursts out all the wrong lines of the dialogue, and you fuck it up. Of course it's your fault, because you aren't good enough at improvisation, and you are a prodigy after all, so aren't you supposed to be perfect?

 

You've disappointed them countless times since that evening, a hint of tiredness in your voice when you talk to your fathers allies, you only hit the bull's eye with four of five arrows, spill one drop of tea during the ceremony, and of course, the worst of all: you don't manage to keep Genji on a leash. It would be a lie to say you didn't try, but your own tiredness turns into bone-deep exhaustion, until getting out of bed each day seems like an expenditure that you can hardly afford some days. You spend the nights alone, because it's not appropriate for you to whore around like your brother does, and mostly because even looking at women tires you even more. 

 

Some nights, you feel like the loneliest person on this planet and beyond. Other nights, the stars keep you company and the dragons whisper into your ears, sometimes insults, rarely assurance that everything will be okay. It's not the end of the road, they say, but you aren't sure if it's really them or just your own thoughts, because maybe this is not the end of the road, maybe you are. Maybe the dragons cracked you up a little too much when they crept into your soul, without closing all the cuts completely, and that's how the darkness and emptiness ended up inside of you. Maybe they got lost, just like you did.

 

Tonight, you almost feel at peace with yourself, with the emptiness inside you, because at least that means that you always have a comrade, that you are never truly alone. Maybe it's the loneliest road of all, you figure, maybe it's the road all prodigies have to walk to achieve true greatness. You also figure that if that's the price for greatness, you will gladly be mediocre. Mediocre with a hand to hold and a loving family, mediocre with a place to come home to and things you love. You'd give your dragons and your bow and arrow and your family's honour and empire, and you'd give it gladly.

 

But you listen to the cicadas dying, and you know it's not your choice to make, that it never was your choice all along. You were born with your honour, and the redemption you are looking for will be nowhere to be found, because in the end, you are nothing without your family and nothing without your honour except an empty shell. 

 

And you'd rather be unhappy then empty.

**Author's Note:**

> listen, i can explain - did anyone ever listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6uw0v_Y8zY) song and figured how perfect it is for the two of them? and i'm so sorry, hanzo, so sorry. the scenes itself might vary in lenght & it's not a 100% tryhard project, so it's a little trashy and self-indulgent.


End file.
